The Medical Student and Al Warka Bank Iraq

On 25 August 2013, the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) sent an official letter to Al Warka Bank in reference to lifting the trusteeship of Al Warka Bank. The document was in arabic so I had an expert translate the document to English for my readers who’ve made this request. You can review the Arabic and English versions here.

In addition, I have an interesting story that I’d like to share with my readers. Several weeks ago I received an email from an individual who was clearly frustrated and distraught. This individual was upset because they had deposited 100k USD into Al Warka Bank. Initially, this person had opened up a savings account with Al Warka Bank with the beliefs that they would get a good return of interest on their deposits. The money this individual deposited, and was hoping for gains on, was meant to be saved to attend medical school. Apparently now, this individual has made several attempts to withdraw his savings & deposits from Al Warka Bank and they have been refusing to cooperate or allow him to withdraw his money. The individual proceeds to explain to me how distraught they are because this savings account was their sole means to attend medical school and now that prospect was bleak. Several months have gone by and this individual has had absolutely no success with being able to retrieve any of their funds and Warka Bank refuses to acknowledge such a deposit. This frustrated individual was writing to me in hopes that I could assist them or could promise a solution that would get their life savings back. Let me just say up front right now,…once you deposit your money in Al Warka Bank there is no way that I, or any other individual not operating within the banking system can help you. This is why in the past I many times tried to discourage my readers & subscribers from doing the very same thing this individual did. This is not an isolated story either. I have heard countless stories of this happening to many people. I chose to highlight this particular individuals story because of the nature of it being a savings account to attend medical school and now this individual cannot attend. This is a hard lesson to learn when you deposit money in any foreign bank. I don’t know if any of you are aware of what happened in Cyprus, but the banks literally stole all the depositors money. And, they are not anywhere near a war zone.

I would just like to reiterate to take extreme caution when dealing with any bank in Iraq. Do your due diligence and really think twice about depositing any money in Iraq. You may know or maybe you don’t know, that most U.S. corporations operating in Iraq do not use the banking institutions inside Iraq, all funds are repatriated back to banks outside of Iraq. This provides more accurate accounting and better banking and International laws to protect the corporation. If they do use a private bank in Iraq it is to only cover small payrolls and occasionally to have a few Iraqi lawyers on retainer. The bulk of the corporation profits are always wired to a bank outside Iraq.

I am not going to tell anyone how and what they should do with their money if they’re interested in banking with an Iraqi bank but I would just encourage research into the banking industry. Also, keep in mind that they are not like 21st century banking.

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E-Mail: ac (at) americancontractor dot com

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